This blog is mainly about the spectacular train wreck at The Sacramento Bee and its parent company, the McClatchy Company. But I also post about current events, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, politics, anything else that grabs my attention. Take a look around this blog, hope you enjoy it.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Tuesday September 22 -- Got news or an update?

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CBS loses bid to dismiss Dan Rather lawsuit (reuters)

A New York judge on Monday rejected CBS Corp's bid to dismiss former TV news anchor Dan Rather's $70 million lawsuit claiming he was fired over a controversial election-year report on former President George W. Bush's Vietnam War-era military service.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Ira Gammerman set a December 22 hearing in the case and directed that testimony be taken from witnesses, including Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Viacom Inc, which controlled CBS at the time.

"Let's get this case moving," Gammerman said. "I would really like to get this case ready for trial."

Independent News & Media is likely to close its flagship London title The Independent by Christmas, the publishing group's second biggest shareholder Denis O'Brien said on Friday.

"There's no point in us as a company subsidising a newspaper that really nobody wants to read in the United Kingdom," O'Brien told Bloomberg TV in an interview on the sidelines of the Global Irish Economic Forum.

"It's not a relevant newspaper anymore and this newspaper's going to be closed by Christmas,"said O'Brien, who has been at odds with the company's board over plans to refinance a 200-million-euro debt issue that was meant to be paid in May.

This is the catchphrase used by New York Times publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr. to describe his operating and journalism philosophy.

It is his "pet" expression, throwing out the initials "W.S.L." in answer to those who comment upon the dire straits of the news industry or complain about his stewardship of the newspaper he inherited.

This explains, in part, the screams this week by the Times, casting opposition to the policies of President Obama as racism.

Most readers are already aware of a growing scandal involving the pro-forced unionism Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) in New York, Baltimore, Washington, and now, California.

According to The Washington Examiner, teacher union officials have contributed over 1.3 million dollars (in mostly forced union dues) to ACORN since 2005.

We decided to do a little digging into union financial disclosure forms on the Department of Labor’s website.

After examining union financial records, it turns out that officials of several high-profile unions diverted large sums of mostly forced union dues dollars to the same ACORN offices in Washington and New York that are implicated in the hidden camera scandal.

Only one of the five television networks that interviewed President Obama for their Sunday shows bothered to ask him about Acorn, the left-wing community organizing group whose federal funding was cut off last week by an overwhelming vote in Congress.

"Frankly, it's not something I've followed closely," Mr. Obama claimed, adding he wasn't even aware the group had been the recipient of significant federal funding.

"This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It's not something I'm paying a lot of attention to," he said.

snip

Given his longstanding ties with Acorn, President Obama's protestations of ignorance or disinterest in the group's latest scandal seem preposterous.

Here's hoping White House reporters will press the president to clarify just how much he really knows about Acorn and when he knew it.

Having just returned form the “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event in Washington, D.C., I was intrigued to check e-mail and discover this from a listener in West Texas:

“…the Statesman finally ran a piece about ACORN.” She was referring to the Austin American-Statesman, which, up until this point had not run a single article about the ACORN scandals that are so hot in the New Media.

The Statesman is a liberal newspaper in the only liberal big city in Texas, but still… Nothing about ACORN?

And it’s not just one paper in Texas that’s ignoring this story;

it’s most of the mainstream media, known on our radio show as the “Jurassic Press” for obvious reasons.

On WLS in Chicago, one of the anchors of a Big Three network newscast, Charles Gibson of ABC, was being interviewed by Don Wade and Roma, the station’s morning talk team.

Don asks Gibson about the Senate bill cutting off funding to ACORN and about the undercover video of ACORN staffers giving tax advice to hookers on how to set up a brothel with 13-year-old hookers.

“But nobody’s covering the story,” he says. “Why?”

Gibson laughs it off. “I didn’t even know about it.

Um. So you’ve got me at a loss. But my goodness, if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it, we should talk about it this morning.”

To which Roma replies, “This is the American Way!”

Then Gibson comes back with this classic:

“Or maybe this is just one you leave to the cables.”

Yes, folks, the cables -- and by that he meant Fox News, the same network that is part of what we just referred to as the New Media.

Charlie Gibson is the same anchor that looked down his nose at Sarah Palin.

The New Media, including talk radio, cable talk (Fox and Lou Dobbs) and various internet sites, is where big news is broken these days.

The Big Three networks are increasingly unable to recognize a big story when they trip over one.

Obama: We Need To Bail Out Newspapers Or Blogs Will Run The World (Silicon Alley Insider)

Obama yesterday expressed concern at the sorry state of the news industry and said that he will look at a news paper bailout, because otherwise, blogs will take over the world, and that would be a threat to democracy, The Hill reports.

"I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding," he said.

In the most contentious exchange of President Barack Obama’s marathon of five Sunday shows, he said it is “not true” that a requirement for individuals to get health insurance under a key reform plan now being debated amounts to a tax increase.

“The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”

And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does, in fact, consider it a tax:

“The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.”

The bill requires every American, with few exceptions, to carry health insurance. To enforce this individual mandate, the Senate Finance Committee created the excise tax as a penalty for people who don’t have insurance –

‘‘(a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of—

(1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, over

(2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer. . . .”

I think we haven't even caught our breath enough to start picking up how hard left Obama is turning.

He actually argued that after the government has driven down your health care costs and given you all this great stuff, the least we can do in return is be fined if we fail to do our part by buying into the program!

Remember the BS about you can keep your plan and your doctor "if you choose to"?

Turns out you will keep a plan even if you choose not to and you will pay through the nose for it.

Obama's talk of "we've driven down your health care costs" is a fantasy he hasn't done anything yet, and his plan costs over $1 trillion for starters.

This guy is deep deep into left wing propoganda and maybe self delusion.

Everybody is saying no to the American president these days. And it's not just that they're saying no, it's also the way they're saying no.

The Saudis twice said no to his request for normalization gestures towards Israel (at Barack Obama's meeting with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, and in Washington at meetings with Hillary Clinton).

Who says no to the American president twice?

What must they think of Obama in the desert kingdom?

The North Koreans said no to repeated attempts at talks, by test-launching long-range missiles in April;

Russia and China keep on saying no to tougher sanctions on Iran; the Iranians keep saying no to offers of talks by saying they're willing to talk about everything except a halt to uranium enrichment;

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is saying no by refusing to meet with Binyamin Netanyahu until Israel freezes all settlement construction; the Israelis said no by refusing to agree to a settlement freeze, or even a settlement moratorium until and unless the Arabs ante up their normalization gestures.

BigGov’s latest story highlights Presidential Advisor Valerie Jarrett’s crew member Buffy Wicks who is the former political director of forced union dues financed WakeupWalmart.com (Wakeup).

In the conference call, Wicks highlighted the important role United We Serve (Serve.gov) has in President Obama’s Organizing America strategy.

See Dana Loesch’s article about Serve.gov directing volunteers to ACORN.

The Obama campaign boastfully promoted Wick’s moniker, “Buffy the Wal-Mart Slayer” that highlights her community organizing experience with Wakeup’s efforts to increase costs for Wal-Mart and the prices for its customers.

However, the Obama White House press release tones down Wicks past position:

Buffy Wicks, Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Wicks has a long history in grassroots organizing and civic engagement. Most recently she was the Director of the Renew America Together effort, the call to service issued by then President-elect Obama.

She also served on the Obama for America campaign in a variety of roles, including California Field Director and Missouri State Director, and helped develop the national grassroots field strategy.

One year after the biggest corporate bailout in the country's history, a government watchdog office Monday warned that American taxpayers may not recoup the full $182 billion given to embattled insurance giant American International Group.

"AIG's ability to restructure its business and repay the government is unclear at this time," the Government Accountability Office said in a new report released Monday.

As of the start of September, the company's outstanding balance of taxpayer aid was $120 billion.

It was a year ago this month that AIG received the first chunk of a government bailout that has since grown to $182 billion.

Govenor David Paterson has soundly rejected President Obama's bewildering attempt to remove him from New York's political scene, stating he fully intends to be remain a candidate for governor of New York against the wishes of our Meddler-in-Chief.

So, based on the new paradigm that all those who disagree with Obama are racially motivated, should David Paterson now be considered a racist for going against the president's wishes?

Or is Obama the racist for attempting to force a standing African-American Governor to abandon his candidacy?

Sources familiar with President Obama's shocking effort to force Paterson out of the 2010 elections told The Post yesterday that the governor's rant last month about racial bias in the media spurred the move.

"If there's one thing that sealed the governor's fate, it was the racial comments, which is just what the president doesn't need," said a prominent New York Democrat.

"It was a stupid statement. It wasn't true, it damaged the president, and the governor's paying the price for it now."

The White House had grown increasingly concerned that Paterson's weakness could hurt the party's majorities in Congress and encourage Republican Rudy Giuliani to pursue the Governor's Office as a platform for a White House run in 2012, sources told The Post.

San Antonio - The Express-News is now fully immersed in the ACORN story, or at least the pimp and prostitute part of it.

The story went from a national brief on Sept. 11 to Page 14A last Tuesday, to 7A on Wednesday to 2A Thursday — and would have been on Page 1 had local TV icon Chris Marrou not picked the day before to announce his retirement from KENS-TV.

The question is, does it deserve Page 1 status, as scores of you — many proudly identifying yourselves as members of the anti-big government San Antonio Tea Party — have said?

I remain skeptical, but pat yourselves on the back, tea-sippers, you got our attention.

TRANSLATION OF ARTICLE: We can no longer pretend this story is not news.

We curse our readers for being far ahead of us on this.

Our keen nose, and professional news gathering talents identify one Rush Limbaugh, of Muleshoe WY, as the instigator of this attempt to embarrass.

Last week, the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) called on Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson (D) to release financial documents and correspondence surrounding his Departments using taxpayer money and state resources to collect healthcare provider names and addresses for the Service Employee International Union (SEIU)....

Another moment of lunacy from this nation’s biggest Oval Office mistake of the 20th century — which may be akin to saying “water is still wet,” but we should be keeping a tally.

While in Columbia, former President Jimmy Carter told an interviewer that the Bush administration “could have been involved” in the 2002 coup attempt against Venezuelan wanna-be dictator Hugo Chavez.

“I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved,” said the man whose favorite pastime these days is to huddle up with anti-American thugs.

Former President Jimmy Carter is throwing his two cents in on Congressman Joe Wilson's (R-S.C.) outburst on the House floor last week. Mr. Carter is calling Mr. Wilson's "you lie" accusation towards President Obama during the President's address to Congress last week an act of racism.

While these racism charges are debated, it should be noted that Mr. Carter referred to Mr. Obama as "this black boy" in August of 2008 during the last presidential elections.

Jimmy Carter: The Biggest Loser The pacifist pansy Jimmy "Peanut" Carter stood by and let 53 Americans be held hostage in Iran for 444 days while he stood by and did nothing.

The day after he left office and the day Reagan assumed the White House the hostages were set free.

Many refer to him as the worst President of all time. Just when you thought his stock could not sink any lower it hit a new bottom.

He recently stated in an interview with NBC's Brian Williams that much of the criticism towards President Barack Obama

"is based on the fact that he is a black man" as well as that there is a "belief among many white people not just in south but around the country that African Americans are not qualified to lead this great country."

The Associated Press reported this, "Former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday that U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst to President Barack Obama during a speech to Congress last week was an act 'based on racism' and rooted in fears of a black president."

When Secretary of Energy Steven Chu thinks of the American people, he apparently sees a bunch of unruly teenagers who need to be told how to act.

Asked at a seminar on reconstructing America's electrical grid about the Obama administration's efforts to persuade people to conserve energy, Chu said “the American public…just like your teenage kids, aren’t acting in a way that they should act.

The American public has to really understand in their core how important this issue is,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

And, notes the Journal's Ian Talley, the Obama administration is spending big to tell us what we should be doing on the energy issues:

Why Did A Capitalist Like Soros Bankroll A Communist Like Van Jones? (WorldTribune.com)

When the list of donors to the Van Jones “Green for All” organization is examined, one name stands out — the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros.

The Green for All 2008 annual report is also notable for the pictures of the powerful people who associated with Jones, a known communist.

They include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Al Gore.

While the Open Society Institute was supporting Green for All in 2008, when Jones was running it, the Soros-funded organization was also financially underwriting the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights when Jones was in charge of that group.

The Open Society Institute gave the Ella Baker Center $151,800 in 2006 and $140,000 in 2007.

Jones ran this group during the years 1996-2007. He then emerged as a senior fellow at the Soros-funded Center for American Progress.

Other funders of the Green for All group included Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection, the Rockefeller family, Men’s Warehouse, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the New World Foundation, the Schwab Charitable Fund, the Streisand Foundation, the Service Employees International Union, and the Tides Center and Foundation.

Too many colleges have become cesspools of Marxism, and it is time for another taxpayers revolt.--Why Is U. Pittsburgh Giving Big Bucks to a Group Intent on Disrupting the G-20 Summit?

It’s unconscionable that a university-certified organization, which received thousands of dollars in funding last year, would promote and endorse such plans.

Students for Justice in Palestine endorsed a proclamation issued by the Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project calling on people to “take to the streets of Pittsburgh to disrupt the summit” and on students to “disrupt schools” in protest against the G-20’s policies.

Jimmah Carter even makes the liberals wince. He has become a person to pity. An old political joke is to try and find one person to admit they voted for Carter. Every time he opens his mouth, he loses more credibility, as if he had any yet to lose. He has sealed the fact that he is the worst president of all time to yet another generation.

Mr. Obama took great pains to act as if he barely knew about Acorn. In fact, his association goes back almost 20 years. In 1991, he took time off from his law firm to run a voter-registration drive for Project Vote, an Acorn partner that was soon fully absorbed under the Acorn umbrella. The drive registered 135,000 voters and was considered a major factor in the upset victory of Democrat Carol Moseley Braun over incumbent Democratic Senator Alan Dixon in the 1992 Democratic Senate primary.====This is a good article. Obama has lied about nearly everything he promised during the election campaign, why would anyone believe him now? Saying he barely knew anything about ACORN is a whopper. Pinocchio’s nose is growing and growing.

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